Sex crime laws in the US, Britain, and France appear to grow more futile as they become more severe, the Economist says. (Shutterstock)

(Newser)
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Sex offender laws in the US and Europe are becoming more ridiculous and futile as they grow more severe, the Economist says. Many of the nation's 674,000 registered sex criminals pose little threat—think of the Georgia teenager who gave a boy oral sex in class—but they still struggle to find work, buy a home far from schools and parks, and tolerate neighbors' harassment.

Sure, there are bad sex criminals—about 5% of those registered, according to one study—but forcing them to live away from schools seems unhelpful: "A determined predator can always catch a bus," the Economist quips. Massive sex registry lists also make it harder for police to watch the real criminals. Meanwhile, sex crime laws are growing stricter in the US, Britain, and France as politicians lack the courage to oppose them.

This is a tough one. We could lower the age to legally have sex but who would support that in government? The idea that someone who has only committed rape or molestation once is not a threat is also a difficult one. I think that we should open to the possibility that we are actually getting better at identifying sex crimes and more people are coming forward to report them. This is not a bad thing. We must remember that many of these teen cases are rape and just because they are close in age doesn't mean that they did not commit a crime. There is no good answer here and with each new incident, people get more and more torn up. We could have tougher sentencing for those crimes were there is no consent. There should be sensible leniency in the teenage years to allow for consensual sex between teens. If the police are unable to deal with the numbers then maybe they need more cops on this. This article on its face is another way of marginalizing the rights of women and children. If 95% of the cases are BS, I would like to know the definition of BS. BS should not mean the marginalization of victim's rights. It should mean greater leniency for teenagers who consent. If that eliminates 95% of cases, great. Somehow, I doubt it.